Globe Earth 3D Pro: Flags Anthems and World Time Zones

Teacher Overview

A great little app, packed full of features, that guides you from the moment you open it and continues to engage throughout the experience.

Teacher Review

Ever wanted to know about flags? This is the app for you! Flags, national anthems, national territories and more – this app provides a wealth of information, in a highly visual manner, suitable for all age and levels of experience.

Upon opening the app, users are presented with a globe of the Earth and given clear instructions explaining how to operate different features, such as pinch, slide, double tap, turn, etc. This allows users to zoom to in and out, rotate the Earth on different axes or tap anywhere to reveal the name of a country. This alone inspires people of all ages, allowing them to take a whirlwind journey around the globe identifying different countries, however, there’s more… a double tap reveals a list of country names and flags in that region. From here, users are able to explore further: a tap on the country name links directly to Wikipedia for detailed information, while clicking the flag itself plays the national anthem for that country. Users can also use the quiz mode to hide the name of the national anthem, just listening to the music, in essence creating a game of guess the anthem.

The app itself is packed with features. A searchable list of countries enables users to quickly locate countries around the globe. The ability to switch between map view and earth view allows users to see different terrain. The option to display each countries’ national flag alongside their territory gives a visual overview of a region and the ability to highlight international boundaries offers users a perspective of the sheer size of countries. Users can select whether they want to display longitude and latitude lines as well as desired location coordinates. Finally, by clicking the star symbol, capital cities around the globe are highlighted. Despite all these qualities, when zooming in, the images can at times appear pixelated and users can only zoom in to a certain distance before the picture becomes too blurred. It seems that maps are taken as an image rather than a direct link from Google Earth. Incorporating this feature would be the logical next step for the developer, however, in the meantime, there is link to an external page that provides live maps and directions.

Within the settings area further features can be found: the ability to set the globe to rotate automatically along with its speed of rotation; the option to select/deselect the 50 states of the United States; and of course the ability to rate or contact the developer.

Overall a great app, designed to engage the curious as well as entertain the seasoned Vexillologist. Worthy of a 5 star rating.